


The adventures of Prince Flea and his brother Keewee

by Lakritzwolf



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Erebor Never Fell, Fix-It, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-17
Updated: 2020-10-17
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:08:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27060205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lakritzwolf/pseuds/Lakritzwolf
Summary: Just some Baby Durin Fluff Galore.Give the original post some love!
Comments: 3
Kudos: 21
Collections: GatheringFiki - Durin's Day 2020





	The adventures of Prince Flea and his brother Keewee

**Author's Note:**

> written for @kot-iol on tumblr as my part of the Durin's Day gift exchange. There isn't much of a plot, but I hope it makes you and everyone else who reads this smile a little!
> 
> Happy Durin's Day! Nurt Durinul Gêdul!

* * *

To Fili, the death of his father came as unexpected as to everyone else. Unlike the adults however he had no idea that with him being a warrior, death was always looming, always close, waiting for his chance to strike. His mother had a hard time explaining it to him, but after he began to understand, Fili insisted he would become the greatest warrior that had ever walked the earth, to kill each and every orc there was. 

Plans of revenge didn’t keep the little prince distracted all the time, however. He was prone to mood swings, his peaceful and polite behaviour gone for good, it seemed, and no matter what Dis did to try and comfort him, it failed. Fili was always either angry or locked away in a deep, dark sadness. 

Until the day his little brother was born. 

Kili had still been carried under his mother’s heart when Felin had died, and would never meet his father this side of the Halls of Waiting. 

But the little being in his mother’s arms brought a smile to little Fili’s face, for the first time in all those months since his father had been brought home on his shield. 

And Kili, as Thorin had named him, latched on to his older brother as if he was the sun of his world. Fili was the one who could comfort him best, together with his mother, Fili could make him laugh when he had hurt himself, Fili could calm him down when he was scared. 

Fili never went anywhere without his baby brother, and Dis constructed a carrying sling for him so he could always have his brother close. 

Some of the other adults felt that he was hanging on far too hard to the infant, likely afraid he’d lose him too, just like he had lost his father. They worried that he might smother the young one, and never let him grow up to be his own. 

Dis assured them she wouldn’t let that happen, and for now she was glad Fili had something that made him smile, and care about. Kili adored his brother, and now she could take breaks in between nursing, changing, and the other chores her duties demanded of her.

* * *

With time, Fili healed from the wounds the loss of his beloved father had dealt him. He was still so young, and children that age tend to forget very fast. It hurt Dis’ heart a little, but she was also happy that the darkness lingering over her firstborn was finally lifting. 

Kili had a great part in that, for sure. He had a smile like sunrise, a laughter like birdsong, was full of mischief but too adorable for anyone to be really angry with him. 

Especially not his older brother whom he adored. Not even the incident about the sweets that Fili had hidden in his closet to eat at an opportune moment dampened that affection. Kili, ever nosy, had found the sweets in question and had been unable to resist. 

When Fili had gotten angry at him he had cried for almost an hour, and in the end his suffering had softened his brother’s heart. After all, what were a few honey cream cookies compared to his brother’s smile? He probably should have shared them anyway. 

Felin’s death had not left the boy completely, however. While he hardly ever thought about his father, who had become an almost distant memory during the last three years, sometimes the loss would haunt him in his sleep. 

His mother had been forced to get out of bed to comfort him less and less, because his nightmares were few and far between by now, but then the night came where Dis was not forced to leave the bed because of it. And it never happened again. 

Fili could hardly remember the dream, but he still felt the fear and the loneliness and betrayal when he woke up. But the pain was the worst, and the fear, and he hated that he was so weak because the adults always said he had to be brave. And right now he was not brave at all. He wiped his face and swallowed his sobs, and hoped his mother wouldn’t hear him. He was eight years old! He couldn’t just cry in bed. 

He sat up when he heard the soft padding of tiny feet. 

“Flea?” 

“I’m alright, Kee.”

Maybe by now, with three, Kili should be able to pronounce Fili’s name correctly, and the adults did what they could. But the very first time that Kili had said his brother’s name it had sounded like Flea, and he had made such an effort, and Fili couldn’t have been happier. 

So Flea he was. At least when no other adults were around to berate Kili for it. Sometimes it was even Prince Flea. And Prince Keewee. Cause for a lot of secret giggles. It was their very own thing, their pet names for each other that no one else was aware of. It was only for them. 

And Kili was now standing at Fili’s bedside.

“Flea has bad dream?”

“Just… yes.” Fili dragged the back of his hand across his face. “But it’s alright now.”

“Flea still crying,” Kili said with a frown. “Keewee fix.”

With that, he crawled into the bed and slipped under FIli’s blanket. 

After all, he knew how you calmed people after a nightmare. You hug them and pat their hair and say soft things like ‘there there’ and ‘it’s going to be okay’, and then you hugged them some more and kissed their forehead. 

That’s what Fili always did for him, after all. So now it was Kili’s turn. 

He whispered ‘there there’ and patted Fili’s hair, and then he snuggled close and slipped his thumb into his mouth with a yawn because it was dark and he was still tired, but he needed to fix his brother first and Flea needed more cuddles so he couldn’t possibly go back to his own bed. 

“I miss Adad,” Fili whispered into Kili’s mop of dark hair. “He is gone.”

“Adad gone,” Kili muttered around the thumb in his mouth. “But Keewee here! Keewee never leave Flea alone.”

“Promise?” Fili clamped his arms around his little brother. “Promise you’ll never go away?”

“Never go away from Flea.” It was a fact, like he was saying the sun rose in the morning and the river flowed into the sea. 

“We belong together, right?” Fili whispered.

“Right,” Kili whispered back. It was a child’s whisper, and thus almost louder than his speaking voice. “Flea and Kee!”

They fell asleep again together, and Dis’ heart melted at the sight of them under the same blanket. 

If only their father could be witness to the bond his sons shared.

* * *

Durin’s Day was approaching, and the whole mountain was steeped in hectic activity, mimicking a giant ant heap. Vendors were ferrying wares back and forth, craftsmen were working almost around the clock to produce all the gifts. 

And from the Iron Mountains, Dain and an entourage of fifty fierce warriors arrived, and all of them needed to be welcomed, and their mounts needed to be stabled and fed as well. 

To avoid the boys getting underfoot in all the commotion they were placed in the care of a few serving women who were also watching a few other dwarflings. 

This did not sit well with Kili especially, who felt deeply insulted in his honour by being grouped together with the infants and toddlers. Cousin Gimli could barely sit, after all, and just crawled around trying to eat dust bunnies, and Kili refused to acknowledge him. 

“I wanted to see the boars!” Kili stomped his foot and crossed his arms. He even rejected the honey cakes old Ygwa offered him, and kept glaring at everyone who as much as looked at him. 

He kept on muttering about the boars, and how he was never ever allowed to do anything, and he would never ever get to see the boars again because cousin Dain had never been to Erebor before with so many warriors and never would again. 

Fili tried to cheer him up, but the truth was that he was miffed as well. He too wanted to go see the boars, because even though the rams of Erebor were magnificent creatures, the boars of the Iron Hills were legendary. 

Luck was on their side when later that day, a few more women dropped off their small children in the chambers where they were being watched over by the serving women. Because those were also concerned with their spinning and embroidery, and thus an opportunity for slipping away surely had to present itself.

Aided by the arrival and departure of several dwarf women and their servants and children, Kili managed to slip out unseen, and quickly vanished into a dark side corridor that led to the privies. Only moments later he was found by his brother, who grabbed his sleeve, wide-eyed and out of breath. 

“We can’t!”

“I want to see the boars. And I am going to see the boars.” Kili glared at his brother, and then stomped away. 

Fili would never rat his brother out of course, but neither would he let him go somewhere alone. So off to the stables it was.

Once the air in the main corridor was clear again, the two boys crept along the walls in the shadows (Just like Uncle Nori had explained) and reached the small servant’s stairwell that led down towards the servants’ quarters. From there they took the corridor to the lower halls, and in the milling chaos there it was easy to find the western gates where the main stables were located. 

The rams of Erebor were only stabled there in the height of winter, and only if the winter was especially bitter. They were hardy creatures, after all, and were mostly left alone under watch, grazing the bitter herbs on the mountainside. Only the sick or injured spent any amount of time in the stables, and even the births of the lambs happened out in the wild, unless the caretakers had noticed some difficulty or another. 

Thus the stables stood empty most of the year, and there was ample space for the Iron Hills boars. 

For Fili and Kili, the stables usually meant silence, and the smell of straw and greasy wool, of sheep dung and the sweetish-sour scent of meadow hay.

But now the stables were filled with grunts and growls and the gnashing of teeth and the smashing, smacking sounds of the boars busily chewing a wild mix of diced roots, cooked grain, and minced offal. 

The stench of fifty huge boars, their atrocious food, and their excretions was so overwhelming the boys only spent a very short time gagging before their senses dulled, just like fingers stop stinging when being submerged in ice cold water for a time. 

They slowly walked along the cobbled aisle between the boxes, hand in hand, and watched the boars that were higher than Kili sitting on Fili’s shoulders would be. Tusks as long as Fili’s arms glinted in the dim light. 

“What the blazes are ye doing here?”

The gruff voice tore the boys out of the reverie, and they spun around. A tall dwarf, bearing the sigils of the Iron Mountains, came hurrying towards them. 

“Are ye outta yer mind, ye crazy wee bairns? What do ye think ye’re doing here all alone?”

“We wanted to see the boars,” Fili replied, but it didn’t sound nearly as firm and courageous as he wanted, because the truth was these huge beasts did scare him, and now they had been caught and Amad would be so mad. And Uncle Thorin would be mad too, and Grandfather Thror too and… and then they wouldn’t get any more honey cakes, and probably only barley gruel before bedtime, and this was the worst Durin’s Day ever.

“Then fer Mahal’s sake, go and ask an adult!” He had reached them now and grabbed one arm in each huge paw of his. “Those mad basterds are only stayin’ put because they’re tired and fed! They’d break out of those flimsy stalls without makin’ half an effort!”

He dragged the two boys along as if they weighed nothing. 

“Have ye seen their tusks, laddies? Ye think ye can outrun an Iron Hills boar? Nay, ye can’t, and if one of those crazy beasts had taken it into his stupid head to be bothered by yer wee bugs then no one would ever have found a hair of you!”

The thought that the boars eating offal mixed with blood meant that they were far from being vegetarians, unlike the rams, had not crossed the boys’ mind. 

“Ta think that Stonegrinder has trampled six orcs to death in one single battle!”

“Stone…” Fili bit his lip.

“Aye! Dain’s boar! Trampled six orcs to death and bit the legs off another two! Whaddya think he does ta two wriggly little dwarflings?”

That did not bear thinking about, and made their situation only worse.

Up in the royal quarters a full search was already underway, and the relief when the Iron Hills dwarf dragged the two princes back upstairs was immediately replaced with anger in both their mother’s and their uncle’s faces when they learned where they had snuck off to.

“What were you thinking?” Thorin asked, after thanking the warrior for his help. “Have we not talked often enough about how dangerous the Iron Hills boars are?”

“We wanted to see them,” Kili said meekly without looking up. 

“You would have seen them,” Dis replied, stepping to her brother’s side. “We would have taken you to see them, had you but asked, you stubborn little tots!”

Thorin crossed his arms and mustered the two with a heavy sigh before his eyes came to rest on Fili.

“Fili my lad, I know your little brother is impulsive and far too inquisitive to be healthy, but you? I expected more of you.”

“But Kili wanted to see the boars, and I couldn’t let him go alone! It’s too dangerous!”

Thorin pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head before looking at his nephew again. 

“Fili... “ He shook his head again. “As much as it honours you, wanting to watch over your brother… there are better ways to keep your brother safe than running after him into danger. Namely, keeping him out of danger in the first place.”

Fili took a deep breath and nodded. “I will remember that, Uncle Thorin,” Fili said and looked up again. “I’ll always keep Kili safe!”

“You should.” Thorin nodded and patted the boy’s head. 

Kili scraped his foot across the wooden floorboard. “Will we have to eat gruel tonight?”

Thorin huffed out an amused breath. “As punishment? No.”

Both boys looked up with big, hopeful eyes. 

“I have a better punishment,” Dis said, tilting her head. “You will help the stable master clean out the stables, once the Iron Hills delegation has left.”

Fili and Kili exchanged a horrified look. 

“I’d rather have gruel for the next week,” Fili said softly.

“Me too,” Kili said. 

But their mother’s heart did not soften. And they never snuck away into the stables again.

* * *

The bond of the sons of Dis did, as was to be expected, extend into mischief as well. Some dared to blame it on little Kili who was, after all, much more adventurous and reckless than his older brother, who had hitherto been a model of virtue, considering his tender age. 

Dis herself however was happy that her firstborn still acted like a child, despite the apparent efforts of all other dwarves around who tried to turn him into the future king long before his age. So she had much more leniency for her sons and their occasional harmless shenanigans. (The boar incident was not qualified as harmless and thus had required some punishment.)

That didn’t mean they always got away without the punishment. Like the day they stole one of the large pork sausages from the smokehouse, the punishment of which was no sausage and no pork for a whole week. Even Thorin found that rather harsh, but stealing food was nothing to be taken lightly. Needless to say, it didn’t happen again. And since the mysteriously vanishing sugar buns that Oin’s wife had been wondering about stopped vanishing as well, the culprits seemed to have been identified. Nothing was ever proven though, so no judgement was passed and no punishment handed out. 

Another of those cases was what later came to be known as the Ale Incident. 

The festivities of the Spring Equinox had been long underway and the celebrating dwarves were getting merrier by the hour, and at one point the children were all ferried off to bed while the serving women brought forth the stronger ales and spirits. 

Fili and Kili however managed to escape the process as Dis was feasting with her own ladies of the queen’s court, who were all relying on their serving maids tonight. The two remained hidden under the table, listening to the raucous laughter and merry songs while carefully keeping out of reach of the stomping boots. 

The current song was about gathering rhubarb, and the two boys exchanged confused glances as to why singing about big round leaves and long pink stems had the drunken men in stitches like that. 

“It’s the ale,” Fili whispered, with his superior life experience, being five years Kili’s senior. “Ale makes men funny. But Amad also says it makes them stupid.”

Kili scrunched his nose. “Laughing like that about rhubarb is really stupid. Nasty stuff. Much much much much too sour!”

“Maybe you have to drink ale to find rhubarb funny?”

But they were not allowed ale yet - they tried, they really did, but their mother was adamant - and they knew they couldn’t ask the men, despite drunk men being more indulgent. They knew that would only have resulted in them being sent off to bed, so they needed to think of something else. 

The two boys exchanged a few speculative looks, and a plan was formed. Kili was smaller, and thus less noticeable, and would undertake the daring venture of sneaking out from under the table and quickly stealing uncle Dwalin’s mug. He was sitting at the edge of the bench, so Kili wouldn’t have to squeeze between him and another dwarf. 

The plan worked splendidly. Right up until the point where Kili got hold of Dwalin’s mug of ale.

The mug had just been refilled, and Kili, who only barely reached the table, couldn't get a proper grip on the mug. And when he pulled, a whole pint of ale in a carved stein was simply too heavy for him. 

The mug toppled over, doused Kili and Dwalin’s legs in ale, and rolled off the table to land in front of Fili where it shattered into pieces in a fountain of foam, ale, and shards of pottery, showering Fili in Ale as well. 

Uncle Thorin glowered, but it was very half-hearted, and Uncle Dwalin laughed so hard he almost fell off the bench, and everyone else laughed as well as the two dwarflings crept out from under the table, looking contrite and dripping ale. 

So, the two almost got away with it but in that moment their mother’s maid entered the room with another flagon of ale. 

“What are you doing here?” she asked, more baffled than angry. “You should be in bed!”

“We wanted to… wanted to…” Fili bit his lip. “We wanted to listen to the songs!”

The serving woman shook her head and hastily vanished again.

“And we wanted to be funny!” Kili added, now addressing Thorin and nodding firmly. “So we wanted to try some of Uncle Dwalin’s ale because we wanted to know why rhubarb is so funny!”

Summoned by the flummoxed serving maid Dis now appeared in the doorway, but whatever Dis was planning to say was drowned by uproarious laughter that made the dwarflings wince. 

Needless to say, the Ale Incident was cause for much amusement during the following years, and for the adult dwarves became even funnier when the two brothers began to approach adolescence and the memories made them cringe even harder. 

Which of course got even worse when they finally understood what ‘a-gathering rhubarb in may’ had been about.

**Author's Note:**

> (Gathering Rhubarb is a nod to the great Sir Terry Prattchet. GNU)


End file.
